Like the first article, what we are trying to do here is present interesting and unique free tools that in many cases are not the same old thing that we’ve seen many times before, or tools that are generally not well know but quite useful.

The selection this time around is perhaps generally more interesting than last time: Rightload, Append Date, Free Image Resizer, Link Shell Extension, Ridnacs, TinEye Client, FileAlyzer, ChangeExt, RightDelete3, and Right Click Explorer Restart.

Here’s the list. Note that all of these were tested with Windows 7 64 bit.

This delightful free app lets you right-click on any file or image and upload it to your FTP server (or multiple servers that you set up, or multiple folders in an FTP server). It also lets you upload to Facebook, Flickr, Imageshack, Imgur, or VirusTotal.

These are the default services you could use right off the bat, but Rightload also lets you easily configure others, such as file sharing services (e.g. Rapidshare and the like, etc.) The ‘upload to VirusTotal’ option is also noteworthy, and very useful!

2. Append Date: right click to add today’s date to the end of file or folder names

If you’ve ever needed to add today’s date to the names of files or folders (as a prefix or suffix), then this program is for you. Append Date lets you select files or folders in batch, and right click to add a date string. It is simple as can be, but potentially extremely useful! The formatting of the date can be tweaked as well (see readme.txt in the installation folder).

Note on installing: the installer from the developer’s page will download the actual program installer, so in effect you will run two installers one after the other. Pay extra attention to the install prompts so as not to install offers that you may not want. Also not that the uninstaller, if you need it, is in the program folder.

Select an image (or a group of images), then right click to resize them. You can use pre-defined profiles or enter your desired resolution on the fly.

The one thing that this program lacks is the ability to convert to another image file format, which we are hoping is going to be added in a future version. For a discussion on this program check out our previous review of Free Image Resizer.

Hardlinks are akin to normal Windows shortcuts except for one crucial difference: instead of pointing to the original file or folder hardlinks let you have the file or folder in MULTIPLE places at once, while occupying space on the hard drive only once.

Files or folders existing in two places at once can be useful, for example, when you want to put a folder inside your Dropbox folder without actually moving it, or when you want to create a ‘favorites’ folder with all the media you want to watch at a future time, without having to create duplicates of your media files or moving them out of your meticulously organized media folders, etc.

I’ve been using this software for years, long enough to know this: Right click shell extension is one of the most useful, must-have Windows extensions out there. Simply right click ‘pick link source’ for any files or folders, then go to the location you want your links, and right click ‘Drop As’. You will get many option: Symbolic Link, Junction, Smart Copy, DoLorean Copy, Hardlink Clone, and Symbolic Link Clone. To know the difference between these, go to the Link Shell Extension website (I use the first two only).

Make sure to download and install the proper version for your system (32 bit vs. 64 bit).

Imagine that you’re hunting for size-wasting files and folders, and that you want to examine a folder’s contents on the fly. With Ridnacs, right-clicking on the folder is all you have to do to get a detailed visual chart of everything inside. Super useful if you need this sort of quick, ad-hoc analysis.

But I will also plug in my favorite disk space analyzer here as well (SpaceSniffer), which alas doesn’t have right click Explorer support but has a very practical and cool way of visualizing file sizes.

6. Tineye client: right click any image to search for similar images online

This little Windows shell extension lets you right click on any image in order to upload it to the Tineye image search service, to instantly find similar images online. A great time saver if you work with online images or if you need this sort of thing.

Right click ‘Analyze with FileAlyzer2’ on any file, and you will get a far-reaching analysis of your file, including a general information pane, hashes, Hex, a preview for image files, and a VirusTotal tab to upload your file to VirusTotal and view the results right there … just to name a few.

This tool is not for everyone, but if you would like the ability to look up a whole lot of information about your files you couldn’t go wrong with FileAlyzer.

Ever wanted to quickly change the file extension of a whole bunch of files (or just a file or two for that matter)? If so, ChangeExt will be a great help. In the screenshot to the right, for example, I am able to quickly change the .jpeg extension to .jpg all at once.

ChangeExt is also useful if you simply prefer to NOT to display the file extensions in Windows as a matter of policy, but would like to have a quick way

This Windows extension deletes files/folders securely by overwriting your file(s) so they are no longer recoverable. It can run from the right click context menu and/or optionally from the send to menu.

Does your Windows Explorer hang or freeze frequently? Or perhaps you are programmer and tinker with processes or apps that require a Windows Explorer restart. Regardless of why, if you need to restart Windows Explorer, this is probably the easiest way to do it, right from the right click context menu.

Ok I’ll admit: this is not a utility that is likely to have a naturally large user base. It made it’s way into this list mostly because of the originality of the concept.

That’s it for now. Do you know of any that I can use in a future article? Let me know in the

ChangeExt is a great utility. I’ve been using it for some time now, because it makes turning ZIP and RAR files into CBZ and CBR files so very, very easy. Definitely a must-have for anyone who’s into comic books or other things that use those formats.

Thanks for the link to the TinEye Client. Definitely going to give that one a try!

Hans

Thanks for the list and all your other articles. This website is wonderful.

I tried “Right Click Explorer Restart”, but it didn’t work. Must not work for Vista. Is there something like this that does? I always need to restart explorer when the volume and battery icons don’t show up.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110765036334827012485 Samer Kurdi

@ Hans: I don’t know of any other tools, although I found This article that describes how you can add it yourself fairly easily.

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